


Signs, Meanings, and Other Bullshit

by SETI_fan



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Canon-typical Beau's interest in a probably-oblivious Yasha, F/F, Found family bonding, Grief, Regrets, Set after the current story arc, Yasha and Molly circus backstory, heavy-handed symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 12:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16264403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SETI_fan/pseuds/SETI_fan
Summary: After the events at sea, Yasha prepares to leave again. Beau decides to take her aside and have a much-needed conversation before she disappears again, and finally address the loss they haven't really had a chance to talk about yet since the last time Yasha left.





	Signs, Meanings, and Other Bullshit

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where the rest of this ocean adventure will lead us, but I just like the idea of having a little scene like this, so giving these girls a moment to just talk. (Since they're both so great at that.) A lot of this may be trite, but it makes me happy. :)
> 
> In terms of the pronouns for Molly, based on how everyone in the Nein and Taliesin himself still refers to Molly with 'he/him', I have the headcanon that Molly was just starting to explore the option of being nonbinary after meeting Bryce, but never got to talk about that with the rest of the team before tragedy struck, so while I think there was some sense Molly might exist outside the binary, everyone still used 'he/him' with him in-universe. Or that Molly would be pretty chill with just about any pronoun being used as long as it was used with good intentions.

Beau was beginning to hate storms. Well, most of the time they were just a physical discomfort when travelling on the road, but on days like today, they meant something else. They meant Yasha was about to leave again.

And these days she had no particular reason to want to find them again.

Life had brought her path to cross theirs again this time, but Beau didn’t put any particular stock in fate. Fate was a bitch. It didn’t care what you wanted or deserved. It didn’t care what you had planned for your life or what you hoped to accomplish. Whether or not it turned things in your favor was purely coincidental. Fate did what fate wanted. And sometimes that meant taking people you cared about out of your life forever.

Beau knew that all too well now.

Well, you couldn’t know what fate would do with the future. But you could control what happened right now and Beau was trying hard to be more active about doing what mattered now instead of waiting until it was too late.

So as the group were getting their bearings back on shore again, Beau stepped over toward where Yasha was watching the distant lightning as if the patterns themselves had a hidden language.

“Yasha, before you go, could I talk to you for a minute? There’s something I need to show you.”

She could practically hear the suggestive looks being exchanged by the others behind her, but she tuned it out. This was too important.

Thankfully, Yasha seemed oblivious to them. She just nodded, tearing her attention away from the storm to focus on Beau. “Sure. Of course.”

In the past, having Yasha’s undivided attention for a one-on-one conversation would have been enough to leave Beau flustered and stumbling over words. But a lot had happened in the last few months and, while the warrior woman was no less attractive, she was also more real and less intimidating. And Beau felt significantly older than she had even then.

They walked a ways down the docks in companionable silence, getting enough distance that Beau could feel assured they had some privacy. If anything happened, she knew Caleb could still Message them or send Frumpkin, but she didn’t want to feel an audience’s eyes on her right now. The salt air off the ocean was oddly familiar now. A few weeks ago she had never even seen a body of water this big and now she had sailed and battled on it enough that it felt strange to be on solid ground again. At times, she still felt as if the earth was rocking beneath her feet like the deck of the ship.

They found a spot out of the way of the bustle of ships unloading their cargo and far enough from the food vendors that the seagulls were unlikely to swarm them. Beau leaned against the railing, looking out over the sea to avoid looking at Yasha straight on. Idly, part of her kept an eye out in case an ungrateful jerk of an owl decided to make an appearance.

Yasha took her lead and leaned on the wooden beam beside her. Her pale skin was slightly chapped with sunburn and wind from their weeks at sea, but her biceps had only gotten more toned from manning the rigging.

Beau tried to focus on the purpose of this conversation.

“So, where do you think you’ll go this time?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Wherever He tells me.”

Which could never be where the Nein also needed to go. Beau pushed aside her resentment for the moment. “Well, whenever you’ve done whatever He needs you to do this time, you know you’re always welcome to come travel with us again. I know the main reason you kept coming back isn’t here anymore…” Damn, after all these months why couldn’t she talk about that without her chest tightening? How was she going to have this fucking conversation?

She cleared her throat and pressed on. “But the rest of us like you too and you’re always part of the Nein if you want to be.”

Yasha was looking down now, her eyes not seeming to be focused on anything. “Thank you, Beau. That…means a lot.”

“And if it’s too painful to be around us after everything that happened, we totally understand that too,” Beau added, feeling the babbling starting to come on again. “I know you weren’t trying to find us this time and if you never want to see us again, we wouldn’t blame you at all. We just wanted you to know we’re always here—or somewhere—if you want to come back. But you don’t have to. Just…” She gestured kind of vaguely between them. “Supportive, whatever you want.”

Fuck.

Yasha rubbed her knuckles, one hand tensed into a fist but with more grief than with rage. “Thank you. It…hurts whether I’m around you all or not. I don’t know where I’m going next, but…we keep finding each other. Perhaps we will again.”

It wasn’t the reassurance Beau was hoping for, but it was about all she was expecting. And that wasn’t why she had intended to have this conversation anyway. Just a bit of her own selfish need to get that out there.

Focusing again, Beau reached into her pocket. Her fingers ran along the edges of the object stored there, a new habit she had developed. Then she gently took the deck of tarot cards out, feeling the sudden absence keenly as she had gotten very accustomed to its weight against her leg.

She moved the worn box up where Yasha could see it too, holding it tightly in her hands so no wind or jostle could knock it out of her grip into the water below. The idea of this last vestige being lost forever too felt like a sin.

Yasha had tensed beside her. She could feel even without glancing over the teal-and-violet eyes staring at the deck of cards. Knew Yasha recognized them without a word of explanation.

“I kept these when we buried him. I wasn’t trying to steal from him or anything, I just wanted something to remember him by. The last important conversation I had with him was when we played a game with these during our watch. I wasn’t… I’m _still_ not happy how we left things. I said some fucked up things to him when he was alive and I can’t make it up to him now. But I’m trying to do better, to _be_ better, in his memory.”

She took a breath, committing herself to her decision. “But I know how much he meant to you. And how much you meant to him. He wanted to find you so bad. I don't think I'd ever seen him that upset, except maybe when we learned about Lucien. He was ready to fight anybody to get you back. And it sucks he never got to know you're okay now, and that you never got to say goodbye to him or kill Lorenzo or get any kind of closure when you woke up…” Fuck, she had so many regrets about that whole fucking situation. “I know it’s not much and it doesn’t fix anything, but I thought you should have these.”

Beau held out the deck of cards toward Yasha.

For a moment, Yasha didn’t move. Then her hand reached out hesitantly, pausing in the air above the deck, before finally she took the cards out of Beau’s hand.

The deck looked small in Yasha’s palm. She cupped it in both hands anyway, as if her curled fingers could protect it the way she couldn’t protect its original owner. Her thumb stroked across the still-bright gold leaf detailed on the surface. For that moment, she seemed to be unaware of the rest of the world around her, lost in memory. Then she brought the deck to her chest and held it there, eyes closed, gripping it like old friends hugging after too long apart.

Beau found her vision blurring with tears. In that moment, she felt like a voyeur, a stranger intruding on an emotional moment she wasn’t part of. Even just seeing Yasha like this—soft, vulnerable, grieving—made Beau look away, sparing the woman any embarrassment at being so disarmed like that.

The moment’s privacy allowed Beau to compose herself as well, blinking her tears back under control. When she heard Yasha shift again beside her, she turned back.

Yasha was still cradling the tarot deck in one hand, but now was reaching into the bag at her side with the other. Carefully, she took out the book she kept her pressed flowers in. The papery edges of a few delicate petals fluttered dangerously in the wind, as did the garish silk ones from Hupperdook.

“Did I ever tell you Molly gave me this?” Yasha asked, looking down at the closed book.

“No.” Beau cleared her throat, hearing her voice still catch a bit although the tears were fully at bay.

“Back when I first joined the circus, I didn’t understand anyone. I understood Common, I spoke it, but the way they used it…” Her eyes were distant again, but lacking the fondness they had had when looking at the tarot deck. “My family were very different from the people here. We were very…blunt when we spoke.”

“You don’t say,” Beau responded instinctively, then kicked herself slightly. Of course she’d be glib when Yasha was actually opening up to her.

“I do,” Yasha continued, unfazed. “When we spoke, we said what we meant, nothing more. But people in the Empire, people here…words mean many things. Sometimes you say things that are lies because you intend to deceive. That makes sense to me. And sometimes you don’t say the truth because the truth will cause trouble, and I can understand that too. But sometimes people say things they don’t mean…and assume you know they don’t mean it. And that doesn’t make sense to me. Speaking was simple with my people. Here…it is difficult.”

Yasha shifted, a bit uncomfortably. “The first few weeks I was in the circus, I nearly got into several fights. Where I come from, if you insult someone, it is a challenge. You must answer it and sometimes that means a fight.”

Beau nodded. She was familiar enough with that world herself.

“But in the circus…insults were different. I was almost kicked out once for drawing my sword on Bosun when he called me a name. I thought it was...showing me I wasn’t welcome. Showing his dominance. Molly taught me that for them, if they said something insulting, it meant they liked you. That you were one of them. He spoke up for me then because he had needed to learn how to talk like that too. So he tried to teach me. But when I tried…it didn’t go…right.” She grimaced a little, possibly somewhat embarrassed. “Apparently the things I said were still actually insults, so I don’t think I ever learned how to do it right.”

Beau chuckled bitterly. “Boy, do I know what that’s like.”

“Molly said I would figure it out eventually. Then in one of the towns we stopped at, he bought this for me.”

She turned the book so it faced Beau. For the first time, Beau could see the title on the book and she scoffed in disbelief.

“That fucker bought you a book on etiquette?”

Now Yasha’s lips were quirked slightly with a hint of humor. “He said it might help me understand more since I was ‘the charm’ of the group. And then he opened it and showed me this.” She very carefully angled it so that the wind couldn’t steal any of the fragile flowers within and opened it to a section where the spine had clearly cracked from being turned to many, many times.

Looking in, Beau saw a brittle four-leaf clover pressed between the pages.

“He found that the day I joined the circus. He kept it, but saw how much I liked the flowers in the Empire, so he gave it to me. He said words can mean more than one thing. Like ‘charm’. Charm is being able to make people like you by being friendly and good with words. It’s also something that brings good luck. So when _he_ called me ‘the charm’, he was teasing me, but also saying he thought good things happened when I was there.”

Beau shook her head, huffing to herself. “See? He was this great fucking person and I treated him like an asshole.”

“Oh, he was an asshole. Definitely,” Yasha said earnestly, though her eyes had that fondness in them again. “But I think you can be an asshole and a good person at the same time.”

Yasha closed the book again, resting the tarot deck on top of it as she cocked her head at Beau. “Molly liked you, Beau. I saw how he talked with you. It was the same way he talked with everyone in the circus. I think he understood people. Better than me. Better than a lot of people.” She tapped the deck against the cover of the book. “And he knew sometimes things that sound mean on the surface hide nicer meanings inside.”

Fuck. Beau turned back out to the water, blinking away the stinging in her eyes that she could probably pass off as the salt in the air if she needed to. It wasn’t fair. How did one damn person she’d only known for a month get to affect her emotions like this? “Right.” She cleared her throat, sniffling but managing to make it sound like she was just taking a deep breath. “Well, that’s…really…”

There was a nudge on her arm. She looked over to see Yasha holding out the deck of cards to her.

“You should keep these. I think he would like knowing you have them.” She lifted the book again. “I have my own memories to keep of him.”

Still mostly speechless, Beau reached out and gently took them back. They still felt heavy, but possibly slightly lighter than she remembered.

“Maybe next time our paths cross, we can play that game you mentioned,” Yasha suggested, still smiling slightly.

“Yeah.” Beau smiled back. “I’d like that.”

Something subtly changed in the energy of the dockworkers around them. Beau looked over to the sailors behind them, noting that Yasha’s warrior’s awareness had picked it up too. The hand not holding the book came to rest on her greatsword, but wasn’t drawing it yet.

Beau noticed a few of the sailors were pointing to the sky and nudging their compatriots. Her eyes darted to the sky, blinking against the overcast grey to try to make out what they were seeing. All she really saw was the usual seagulls swooping around. Then, above the chaos of the gulls, she made out a larger shape. Still a bird, very similar coloring to the gulls, but considerably larger and with almost stupidly long wings.

It didn’t look like a threat. Beau looked back at the sailors and saw they weren’t readying any weapons. If anything, they seemed excited.

“Hey.” Beau flagged down the nearest sailor who passed by. “Something going on?”

The graying half-elf grinned back at her, revealing the lost teeth of a life at sea away from fresh fruit. “We’ve got an albatross flying over the dock. They don’t usually come this far inland. Probably the storm’s driving it in a bit. Either way, they’re a sign of good luck for anyone traveling, so we’ll take the blessing however we get it.”

“Albatross?” Yasha asked, hand lowering from her sword.

“Yeah, that big bird up there.” He pointed where it was now gliding lower over the harbor, making a leisurely pass over the ships, garnering cheers and shouts from crews below as it went. “Good omen for sailors as long as you treat ‘em right. Some folks call them mollymawks.”

Beau felt like she’d been kicked in the chest. She managed not to drop the tarot cards, but only because her hands locked in a death grip on them.

“Well, wherever you’re going, you picked a good day to travel,” the sailor said, patting Beau’s shoulder as he continued on his way.

Beau gave a wordless mutter in reply. Yasha had let go of her sword, but her hand sort of hovered in the air a moment beside her head before lowering absently to her side again. Both women just watched as the albatross wheeled slowly over the port and made a pass directly above them.

Beau shook her head, feeling some of the tears escaping despite her best intentions. “You really are an asshole, you know that?” she called in the direction of the bird.

It gave no acknowledgment of her shout, which she was kind of grateful about. Instead it just flapped its wings lazily and gradually curved its way back along the coast in the direction of the storm.

“That’s just stupidly symbolic,” Beau commented roughly, needing to break the heavy atmosphere that settled over them.

“The timing was a bit too perfect,” Yasha agreed.

“I mean, even for him, a little over-the-top.” She wondered briefly if the joke was inappropriate or insensitive, but she saw Yasha chuckling to herself and relaxed. “He would’ve loved that, though. Got the whole dock’s attention.”

“He would have. He always enjoyed being admired.”

Thunder rumbled again at a distance and reality broke through the easy calm between them. Yasha looked over Beau’s shoulder at the distant storm and her expression returned to its serious composure.

“I should go say goodbye to the others,” she said, putting her book away. “Then, I really do need to go.”

“I know. You do what you’ve gotta do.” Didn’t mean Beau resented it any less, but she wasn’t going to leave Yasha with that extra burden to worry about. “Stay safe out there, if you can.”

“I’ll try. You too.”

Yasha her hand out for Beau to shake. It was almost awkwardly formal, but it was an actual, intentional connection initiated by Yasha and that spoke volumes.

It was charming.

Plus, her grip was strong enough to compress Beau’s bones a bit, which gave her a little flutter in her stomach.

Beau watched Yasha weave her way back through the bustle of the docks to where the rest of the Mighty Nein were waiting and hopefully not stealing another boat. Once she was out of sight, Beau looked back at the storm creeping its way over the sea. “You’re an asshole too,” she muttered, and was again grateful the crackling lightning gave no indication of reacting to her comment.

Sighing, Beau leaned on the railing again, letting her eyes drift across the view of the ocean as she rubbed the edge of the tarot deck. The albatross had travelled fully out of sight as well, leaving her with just the typical tableau of the port and the ships coming and going, gulls swarming throughout.

She knew intellectually it wasn’t really him. Life and death didn’t work that way. At best it might have been the Stormlord giving Yasha a bit of closure so she could put that to rest and carry on with her work for Him. Still, part of Beau kind of hoped it had been Molly. He would’ve loved the ocean. There were definitely worse possibilities for an afterlife.

On a whim, Beau turned so her back was leaned on the railing and took the cards out, shuffling them idly. She knew more about tarot than she had let on, another thing she wished she had taken the time to talk about with Molly, when she thought they still had all the time in the world. She knew the basics, a few of the simple meanings of the cards and the arrangements you could do with them. And she knew enough to know bullshit when she saw it, as the cards were probably at least 95% bullshit with most ‘fortunetellers’. Molly would have freely admitted that himself too.

But it was that last five percent that kept life interesting. She shuffled the deck and drew a card without letting herself second-guess too much. It was pointless—even if there was something to tarot, the deck was incomplete since the Moon card was left at Molly’s grave and thus would never be fully usable again, not that she would ever tell Jester that—but it was just for a laugh.

She flipped the card over and snorted.

The Wheel of Fortune. Fucking fate.

“Yeah, fuck you too,” she muttered, but with more affection than irritation.

She tucked the card back into the deck and put it back in its protective box, then returned it to her pocket. The now-familiar weight felt right, a comforting indication it was there, and she felt balanced and centered. At least as much as she ever did.

With the storm at her back and the ocean wind on her face, Beau headed back to her family and wherever the next leg of the journey took them. And she hoped their path overlapped with those of others she cared about again soon.


End file.
